Residents in the English Riviera resort of Torbay will lose out more than anywhere else in the region when changes to the benefits system kick in, academics at Sheffield Hallam University said.
Working-age residents in Torbay will lose an average of £704 each through cuts to state hand-outs – the seventh hardest hit area in the country. It is almost three times more than the least affected area.
Elsewhere in Devon, residents in Plymouth will be £551 out of pocket on average and those in Torridge will lose £522. In Cornwall, the impact will be £521 per person. All losses are above the £470 national average.
MPs, union leaders and people relying on welfare in the region warned the Westcountry's poor economy would get poorer and the most vulnerable would be forced into debt.
Professor Steve Fothergill and Professor Christina Beatty, from Sheffield Hallam's Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, who led the study, argued the figures underlined a north-south national divide as the most deprived local authorities across Britain would be hit hardest. Residents in Hart in Hampshire will lose just £240 compared to £910 in Blackpool.
But the study – which assessed the financial impact of changes to housing benefit, disability living allowance, child benefit, tax credits, council tax benefit and several other hand-outs – showed the far South West peninsula will also suffer, indicative of decades of industrial decline and failing seaside resorts leaving a low-wage economy in their wake.
Many welfare reforms came into force last week, and by the time they take full effect they will take nearly £19 billion a year out of the economy. This includes £343 million in Devon and £171 million in Cornwall.
Michelle Kent, 47, from Penryn, Cornwall, is registered as partially sighted, and estimates she will lose more than £1,000 a year through reform of housing and council tax benefit and the Disability Living Allowance.
The mother-of-three, who lives with her 15-year-old daughter, said: "The benefit cuts are too much in one go. I find it upsetting, and I don't think people realise how it will hit them until now. I really don't think MPs knew what they were voting for when they put the Welfare Reform Act through."
Adrian Sanders, Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay, said the area was hard hit because of expensive rents, high unemployment and the end of council tax discounts. The Liberal Democrat MP called for ministers to swell the coastal communities regeneration fund. He added: "Seaside resorts have been in a slow, inexorable decline for decades, and it has gone under the radar."
Stuart Roden, the Unison union's organiser for the South West region, said: "I can see a lot of people being put in serious financial circumstances."
